Passion. I suppose that's what it's all about with these one man black metal bands: pure, unadulterated, single-minded passion. Something about the isolation from the main networks of black metal and the larger society as a whole impacts the artistic vision and strength of these bands in simply magnificent ways. It's been 6 years since Elysian Blaze main man Mutatiis has dropped an album, but right away with his 2012 offering, he shows us he hasn't merely been twiddling his thumbs all that time. The result of the past decade's creative dedication has spawned Blood Geometry, an over two hour, double disc magnum opus of all the trademarks Mutatiis has become known for that also, indeed, takes such techniques to new heights.

Haha, I couldn't even get through this. It's not bad at all -- in fact, it's pretty damn alright -- but in this amount of time I can listen to Rain Upon The Impure and Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite back to back and get like 5,000,000X more awesomeness out of them. This thing would be a lot better if the segments were just cut in half. It's not a mess, but it's bloated as fuck.

While I was initially a bit skeptical about Blood Geometry due to its overwhelmingly long duration, that skepticism quickly ceased to be when I listened to the whole album in one go in the middle of the night with nothing but the darkness surrounding me. That setting enabled me to fully lose myself in the atmosphere as well as focus on all the details and shifts that have gone into creating this work of art.

The album contains enough variation as to never get tedious which I was really impressed by. The overall ambience and beautiful keyboard sections in addtion to the occasional outbursts of blastbeats was more than enough to keep my interest up amidst the all the bleakness and despair.

This is without a doubt one of the best albums of last year and as a matter of fact I have the Metal Storm Awards to thank for this discovery which would most likely have otherwise remained unnoticed to me.

This might be the most massive album I've ever heard. What an album. Pretty much the definition of black/funeral doom metal. Lots of both of these genres to be heard, which obviously is a great combination.

Seriously. Coming back to it today and I gotta say, if this isn't hailed as a classic within the next 5-10 years, something is wrong with the universe.

Haha no kidding. Spun this whole album last week as well in one go. The only problem I have with it is that the ambient/atmopsheric parts go on for too long which at times makes me lost interest a bit. I would've been okay with a 20 minutes or so shorter album because even then it would be damn massive.

And since we're genre nitpicking (on Facebook), I think this is pretty damn melodic for a funeral black/doom album.

Since we're genre nitpicking (on Facebook), I think this is pretty damn melodic for a funeral black/doom album.

Well that's really where the BM element comes in imo, it's no new news that black metal borrows heavily from classical music, and this album is very neoclassical, even (as I said in my review) opera-like at points.

Production is where this album is damn brilliant. An incredible listen and my favourite tracks are Blood Of Ancients, Blood of Hatred which is absolutely amazing and sums up everything this album is about and has to offer in 36 mins and Pyramid Of The Cold Sun.